Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Network of Islamophobic Facebook Pages Exposed by Snopes Goes Dark - https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/05/26/fb-islamophobic-network-down/

Supreme Court Passes Up a Chance to Reconsider Roe

Republican legislators passing extreme abortion restrictions in red states around the country are hoping that they can get the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade and chip away at the right to an abortion. But on Tuesday, the court passed up on one of its best chances to do so. For almost six months, the […]

Comet inspires chemistry for making breathable oxygen on Mars

Researchers have demonstrated a new reaction for generating oxygen that could help humans explore the universe and perhaps even fight climate change at home.

Librem 5 – End of May Progress Update

So many changes -- kernel updates, making calls, messaging, adaptive UI improvements, documentation, and more. Plus some quick video clips demonstrating some of the software work (including running on dev kit)!

https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-end-of-may-progress/

Donald Trump’s Path to Victory

President Donald Trump currently has the lowest average public approval rating of any president since opinion polls were invented. He is poised to lose the popular vote in 2020, as he did in 2016.

The GOP, however, sees a road to the White House, and, again, it runs through the Electoral College. Trump tweeted March 19, “I used to like the idea of the Popular Vote, but now realize the Electoral College is far better for the U.S.A.”

While the Electoral College is integral to a possible Trump re-election, the GOP’s war plans contain four other components.

In a March speech at the Romanian Academy in Bucharest, campaign manager Brad Parscale said Team Trump will keep their man in office by spending $1 billion and mobilizing 1.6 million volunteers in a data-driven, get-out-the-vote campaign targeting the 36% of the electorate in swing states who are “inclined to vote for Trump.” The campaign will also again invest in Facebook ads to reach the “lost, forgotten people of America.” “Millions of Americans, older people, are on the internet, watching pictures of their kids because they all moved to cities,” Parscale said. “If we can connect to them, we can change this election.”

Second, the Republican Party will suppress the vote of Democratic constituencies—with the help of the five-justice conservative majority on the Supreme Court (four of whom were appointed by presidents elected despite losing the popular vote). In June 2018, for example, the conservative justices upheld an Ohio voter suppression law that purges voters who fail to return an address confirmation form. Meanwhile, in the swing state of Arizona, the House voted in March to create new crimes associated with voter registration. Anyone who registers a voter in Arizona but fails to turn in the filled-out registration form within 10 days could face four months in jail. The good news is that groups across the country, like Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight Action in Georgia, are mobilizing “to ensure access to democracy for all.”

Third, the GOP will try to win over affluent suburbanites by smearing Democrats with the S-word. “We’re going into the war with some socialists,” Trump told GOP congressmen in April. “I love the idea of ‘Keep America Great,’ because you know what it says is we’ve made it great. Now we’re going to keep it great, because the socialists will destroy it.” Fourth, Politico reports that pro-Trump PACs, like America Rising and America First, are spending millions “pursuing a strategy intended to pit Democrats against each other in a battle of progressive bona fides.”

Not that the Democrats aren’t already at odds. Party unity handwringers fear the Left won’t rally to the Democratic candidate should Sanders or Warren fail to secure the nomination. (Yes, in 2016, 12% of Sanders voters ultimately voted for Trump, according to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study. It’s a significant number, but less than the 25% of Clinton primary voters who voted against Obama in 2008.)

Another threat to unity comes from centrists who fume about Sanders at high-end donor soirées. The specter haunting these discussions is Howard Schultz, the plutocracy’s designated spoiler. As novelist Jacob Bacharach observed, the Democratic donor class is not so much worried that Schultz will sabotage 2020 as they are threatening to rally to Schultz themselves, and thereby hand the election to Trump.

A united and broad anti-Trump front will be essential in November 2020. To the extent that a handful of super-rich liberals jeopardize that unity, they should be named and shamed.

Choose Your Own Apocalypse

A fun diversion from our Empire issue.

Begging Your Pardon

It’s evidently a “war crime” to kill a bunch of civilians and pee on their corpses?

Pretty Wacky!

Tomorrow’s news, today!

Fuck this noise.

"The Uber of Live Music" - https://www.jwz.org/blog/2019/05/the-uber-of-live-music/

Group A strep genome research expedites vaccine development efforts

The global search for a group A streptococcal (Strep A) vaccine has narrowed after researchers identified a common gene signature in almost all global Strep A strains by sequencing thousands of genomes in a project spanning 10 years and more than 20 countries.

Major step forward in the production of 'green' hydrogen

The first thermodynamically reversible chemical reactor capable of producing hydrogen as a pure product stream represents a 'transformational' step forward in the chemical industry.

In case you were still wondering if these shitbags weren't facists looking to suppress participation in our "representative democracy".

The Right Opens Up a New Front in the Census War: Criminal Records - https://theintercept.com/2019/05/22/census-2020-criminal-record-question/

Scientists uncover a trove of genes that could hold key to how humans evolved

New computational analysis finds that more than two dozen human zinc finger transcription factors, previously thought to control activity of similar genes across species have in fact human-specific roles and could help explain how our species came to be.

An Indiana Man Who Vandalized A Synagogue With Nazi Symbols Admitted How Far-Right Figures Radicalized Him - https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/claudiakoerner/indiana-man-vandalized-synagogue-nazi-symbols-radicalized

New causes of autism found in 'junk' DNA

Leveraging artificial intelligence techniques, researchers have demonstrated that mutations in so-called 'junk' DNA can cause autism. The study is the first to functionally link such mutations to the neurodevelopmental condition and the first clear demonstration of non-inherited, noncoding mutations causing any complex human disease or disorder.

You can pre-order the Librem 5 smartphone (shipping starts in Q3) for $649.

Price goes up to $699 soon as we prepare for launch.

https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

Peace in Our Time

“The accuser,” from 1920.

‘If I disappear’: Chinese students make farewell messages amid crackdowns over labor activism - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/if-i-disappear-chinese-students-make-farewell-messages-amid-crackdowns-over-labor-activism-/2019/05/25/6fc949c0-727d-11e9-9331-30bc5836f48e_story.html

9 Klan Members Showed Up to Their Ohio Rally. 600 Anti-Racists Came, Too.

A branch of the Ku Klux Klan—the Honorable Sacred Knights of Madison, Indiana—planned a rally in Dayton, Ohio, on Saturday. But when the time came to march, only nine supporters of the group showed up downtown, and they were met by 500 to 600 counterprotesters rallying against racism. City leaders feared a rerun of the […]

Europe's surging, far-right, "anti-establishment" parties: funded by billionaires, voting for billionaire-friendly policies, lining their own pockets - http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/ZgeCXzYOn9U/turkeys-vote-for-christmas.html